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5 Things I Love and 5 Things I Hate About Diablo 3

Heroes are needed to save the world of Sanctuary, as the Lord of Terror is reincarnated once more in Diablo III.

BY: Nicholas Pesci

Diablo III is a fantastic game in an amazing trilogy, but it isn’t without its flaws

Although there are many great things about it, there are also some areas that could be improved upon, which range from notably absent to mildly infuriating. In this article, I will discuss five things I love and five things I think could be improved upon in Diablo III.

In the third installment of Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo series, a hero is beckoned once again to the world of Sanctuary, in order to save its citizens from the Lord of Terror, Diablo, and his evil minions. Diablo III follows the trail blazed by its prequels by immersing players in a world of dark, foreboding environments filled with maniacal, bloodthirsty creatures. Each game in the series is built around dungeon crawling, but is significantly different from the others, in certain regards. The following list is comprised of five things that I love, and five things that I hate, about Diablo III.

1. Diablo III has the best storyline in the series

The storyline in Diablo III is even more expansive and immersive than the ones in the previous two games.

Each game in the series has featured a deeper plot than its predecessor, as the series’ recurring non-player characters (NPCs) have further developed and the lore has expanded. Diablo III features a handful of noteworthy NPCs from the previous games; some of whom will help you, and some of whom will relish the chance to avenge their death in a previous game. The storyline of Diablo III also contains its fair share of twists and turns, although you will probably see a couple of them coming well in advance.

2. There is a wide selection of difficulties to choose from

With fourteen different difficulties to select, challenges are easy to come by for both new and seasoned players.

Diablo III features fourteen unique difficulties for players to select, which keeps the game fresh long after other games have gone stale. At the start of the game, only three difficulties are available: Normal, Hard, and Expert. Upon completing the game’s campaign, the player unlocks Master difficulty, and upon reaching level 60 with one character, the Torment difficulties are unlocked. Each difficulty above Normal grants bonuses to the amount of gold found and experience points earned, but beware, for enemies have increased health and damage as well.

3. Paragon levels allow further progress after reaching maximum level

After maxing out at level 70, players can continue to level their character through paragon levels.

In Diablo III, once you reach maximum level, your character can continue to be enhanced via paragon levels. Each successive paragon level is earned via greater experience than the previous, and allows you to put a point into one of four skills in four categories: Core, Offense, Defense, and Utility. Better still, the paragon points are available to new characters as well, so if you have 50 paragon points earned on a maximum level character, you can allocate those 50 points on a level one character, which possibly allows you to start on a slightly higher difficulty earning experience points more quickly.

4. There are even more set bonuses to pursue in Diablo III than in Diablo II

There is no shortage of set bonuses to equip in Diablo III, which creates variety by promoting different play styles.

As of Patch 2.4, Diablo III has 46 total sets for players to pursue. Approximately half of these sets can only be earned in the Reaper of Souls expansion, but because the set bonuses are typically extremely powerful, the pursuit of set pieces is a priority to most end game players. Additionally, the sets specific to each class promote the use of skills the player may not be familiar with, which can add variety to a player’s Diablo III experience and help keep the game interesting.

5. Diablo III makes looting even more fun than the previous games

Let’s be totally honest: the Diablo series is really all about picking up that sweet, sweet loot!

Arguably, the greatest single factor contributing to fun in the Diablo series is getting to pick up all that loot that drops. And in Diablo III, the process of looting is even more streamlined, since gold is automatically picked up when the character runs over it. Furthermore, the player can equip gear featuring an attribute that increases the radius by which gold is picked up, allowing even faster looting, although this usually comes at the expense of a more useful battle attribute. Still, the more loot one can grab, the better, and Diablo III surpasses its prequels in this regard.

Here is my list of five things that I hate about Diablo III:

Although Diablo III improves upon many of the concepts and systems of the previous games in the series, there are a few areas where the game could possibly be improved.

1. Diablo III is severely lacking in character customization

In an era of gaming where character customization is at an all-time high, Diablo III offers almost none.

Admittedly, I have always been a “gameplay over graphics” flag bearer, so cosmetic factors never mattered that much to me. But in an era of gaming where you can go so far as to customize the length of crow’s feet by your character’s eyes, Diablo III offers almost zero options to customize your character. The option to transmogrify your character’s gear is nice, since it is inevitable to end up with terribly mismatched pieces of armor, but why not add options to change the way your character looks? The thought of a ginger-headed female barbarian cleaving souls from monsters is just too ironically appealing to not be a reality.

2. Diablo III only features six playable classes

The addition of the Crusader class brought a sixth option for players to choose, which is still one less than Diablo II.

I only say “only” because Diablo II featured seven playable classes. Might we see a druid-like character introduced in a second expansion? Perhaps, but it kind of feels like there could be more. There are a number of crossovers from Blizzard’s World of Warcraft; did somebody say [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]? So why can’t two to three more playable classes be one of them? Druid, Death Knight, and Priest are the three classes that arguably aren’t integrated into the existing playable characters of Diablo III. This is probably just me being greedy, though.

3. Diablo III allows you to only use six skills at once

Having six skills to use at any time is a big upgrade over Diablo II, but like with playable classes, I want to be greedy.

There is that word again… “only”. In this case, Diablo III gives you more skills to use at any given time than Diablo II. And maybe it’s just the vanilla World of Warcraft shaman in me, but I prefer to have more options. I could see people arguing that having access to more spells at once would fundamentally change the way the Diablo games are played, but I would counter that increasing the number of skills by 300%, and that is if you don’t count passive skills, makes Diablo III more enjoyable than Diablo II, at least in that regard. There probably is a limit to the number of skills a player should have, but I think that number should be closer to ten than two.

In Diablo II, the player could allocate skill points as they saw fit, instead of acquiring runes at predetermined levels.

As flawed as it was, Diablo II’s skill tree system was fun because you were able to experiment with various builds. And fun is ultimately what gaming is all about. Sure, if you were deeply into the end game of Diablo II, you probably had to subscribe to a certain build, and that made the game more fun for you. But if you weren’t into the end game as much, playing around with strange hybrid builds was a source of enjoyment. Diablo III could implement a similar system built around paragon points; say, every fifth level you earn one skill point to augment a favorite skill.

5. The stash in Diablo III doesn’t have nearly as much space as it should

Although much improved over the stash from Diablo II, there still isn’t enough space in the Diablo III stash, especially when the stash is shared among all characters in the respective modes. As an avid Hardcore player, I like to keep as much quality gear as possible in my stash in the event that a character bites the dust. And although it is uncommon, set pieces from other classes can drop during the course of a game. Since there are four sets per class with the Reaper of Souls expansion, that is a lot of stash space taken up by items your current class can’t (or shouldn’t) use.

That’s it for my list of Diablo III loves and hates. Feel free to comment and agree or disagree, or add some of your own items to either list.

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